CrucisSt. John of the Cross
St. John of the Cross was born Juan de Yepes y Álvarez in 1542 at Fontiveros, near Ávila in Spain, into poverty after his father's early death, and died on 14 December 1591 at Úbeda. A Carmelite friar and priest, he was drawn by St. Teresa of Ávila into her reform of the order, becoming the first friar of the Discalced Carmelites and a leader in the movement for stricter observance. His reforming zeal provoked fierce opposition: in 1577 he was seized by friars of the older observance and imprisoned for nine months in a cramped cell in Toledo, where, in darkness and suffering, he composed some of his greatest poetry.
A mystic and poet of rare depth, he is a Doctor of the Church, honored with the title Mystical Doctor. His works — the Dark Night of the Soul, the Ascent of Mount Carmel, the Spiritual Canticle, and the Living Flame of Love — chart the soul's purification and ascent to union with God through faith and self-emptying love. He was canonized in 1726 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1926.
Selected quotes
“Nada, nada, nada — nothing, nothing, nothing; and even on the mountain of union with God, nothing — for the soul that has arrived does not cling even to the arrival, but rests in God alone.”
“God communicates Himself most fully not in the noise of consolation but in the silence of contemplation — learn to be still, and let Him speak in the language that has no words.”
“To reach union with God, you must pass through the dark night — do not flee from it, for it is not abandonment but purification, not the absence of God but His most transforming work in you.”